Odone is best known for his children's book illustrations including HONEY BADGERS and THE BEDTIME TRAIN, but is taking a distinct turn away from those lush paintings to draw raw stick characters with odd and quirky idioms floating in the air. The birth of these minimalist drawings came soon after the death of Michael Jackson when Odone used his art as a means of therapy by creating a stick-figure tribute to “the gloved one” performing “Thriller.”
Literary nonsense turns to whimsical, macabre in the pen and ink drawings of Odone. Starkly black and white while providing no definitive view point, these stick characters are as much a quandary as their literary, cartoon and theatre counterparts ever were. While this deconstructed version omits much of the melodic verbiage of the original Lewis Carroll classic, the end result is a simple variation with an exquisite twist that’s already being compared to Edward Gorey.
Here we have a double page spread for the next Stickfiguratively Speaking book that I am ready to show. Now, this image will not be one of the actual finals in the book(I will fully redraw it at the correct size) but it is exactly how the final art will all look. It will be [...]
This top image is a part of an autobiographical series I’ve decided to work on in between projects–sort of an ongoing thing. They will eventually be made into a book–but more of an art book project, nothing that I care to ever have published. This second image is nothing more than a demo I gave [...]
"Odone's retelling of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland reinvents the world not as dark and dangerous—as many modern interpretations have done—but with all the whimsy and wonder of a child chasing a mysterious white rabbit. Mixing text with stick figure illustrations, Odone follows an Alice who is now somewhat pluckier than in her original incarnation as she meets the iconic Wonderland residents. What is thankfully lost in the translation are the political subtexts that made Carroll's original work less like a fairy tale and more like a story of caution. Alice is simply a girl who outwits the bumbling and the bad rulers of Wonderland. The Red Queen is a villain and not a political allegory. Fans of Odone's other works, Honey Badgers and The Bedtime Train, will find Alice to be a departure from his regular style, but his neat little stick drawings are wholly reminiscent of how children actually draw during their early artistic years, making it an easy book to pick up. Odone's lighthearted take on the characters is refreshing; it allows the story to breathe and see itself in a new and magical way. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)"
~Publishers Weekly
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